"myself to fubftance.-The Letter, my Lords,

"ended thus:

"I am, Sir,

"With the greatest refpect, efteem, " and regard,

"Your moft obedient and most humble fervant,

"Alexander Macbeane."

I do not recollect feeing Edmond in the House of Lords just at that moment; but when I read Southerne's Letter to Dr. Rawlinson, (a reference to which the curious reader will fee in the Effence, part the first, page 20, second edition) I took it for granted, that he must have heard, with me, the North British Advocate;-and fince I have feen Lady Barnard's will, I am fure he was there; or, as the Sergeant would say, ' I demur to the competency of his alibi.

PART THE SECOND.

Edmond-the Vowel Killer,

AN

CANON I.

N Editor of a poet who died near two centu"ries ago, should be very anxious to ascertain the "number and the pofition of the letters in which "bis name ought now to be written.

"He should overturn, if he can, with an air of "defiance, the mode of spelling that name which "has been generally received.

"He should, in quoting others, whether ancient "or modern, who have written the name, be as in"correct as it may suit him to be.

"He fhould then, with an amiable palinode, in a Separate work, abandon the fact upon which be "bad built his defiance, but affert bis intention to "perfevere in the corollary from thofe premifes ta the end of time."

"I will

"I will pen down my dilemmas."

*Note by Warburton.

All's Well that Ends Well.

"Dilemmas" arguments that conclude both ways."

I cannot figure to my own mind an object of enquiry, and of research, more interesting, than how we are to write at this day the furname of that poet who was born at Stratford upon Avon, A.D. 1564, who died there A. D. 1616, and whose last Editor,

"Like Aaron's ferpent, fwallows up the reft."

Cicero, who in ftyle and powers of reasoning is one of Edmond's prototypes, has told us, "that "we long to know where great men LIVED, and "where they SAT."

Mr. Pope had the fame kind of local fuperftition:

"Here St. John SAT,-and thought."

A fimilar paffion of the reader is fed and cherifhed by the Hiftorian who tells us where Dryden LIVED, and where he SAT,-when PREPARING for A CONSIDERABLE WORK, " and well fupplied WITH σε DAMASCENES for the purpose, by TONSON THE "BOOKSELLER."*

The late Earl of Orford, who was the honour as well as the head of the Minutian race, amongst

* See the Effence, &c page 45, fecond edit.

his precious heir-looms, has left, at Strawberryhill, a picture of the very house in its modern appearance, which contained, when it was another house, his favourite Madame de Sévigné; and for her fake his Lordship has given us, if I recollect, in the fame picture certain other parts of that im mortal street.

Upon the fame grounds of pofthumous claim to endearment, we embrace with rapture the washerwoman's bill of the "illuftrious dead," or the written charge of the undertakers who buried them. We depofit in the Museum, or in the antiquarian archives of Somerset House, their letters to an attorney or a taylor; and the fac fimile of their illegible autograph is a Pitt's-diamond for a

CURIOUS READER.

But how their name fhould, with punctilious accuracy, be now written, if two centuries have intervened fince the owners of that name were born, is of all Fox-chaces the most alluring to a keen Editor of their works. Ever fince the memorable cors et crie after Mr. Alderman Whittington's Cat (which I had the honour to attend at the Society of Antiquarians*) I am aware of no bunt which requires and produces better fportfmen. By the way, this metaphor is delightfully appofite, but it is not my own; it is that of Edmond, who calls every diffentient from him (past as well as future)" AN IDLE BABBLER" in this very pursuit, į. e. as he amplifies it, now-and-then, to his Co

* Then held in Chancery-lane.

[Malone.

сс

terie of the philo-Malonians "a dull and blundering hound, who gives the tongue when there " is no fcent"-or, without metaphor, a goffip who circulates the falfe alarm of a fuperfluous E in a "poet's name," which the Malones of the pack,

"Slow in * purfuit,"

but fagacious at last, are sure to correct.†

In enquiries like these we do not in general demand any fubject at all.

Rowley, for example, was received aux bras ouverts by the acute and profound cross-examiner of counterfeits, Mr. Tyrrwhit, as well as by the fuperficial and Punic faith of Strawberry-hill, before it was (or could be) determined that fuch a poet ever exifted-was quoted with amiable credulity by the accomplished Editor of Chaucer for the illustration of that poet ;-was, at a later period, ambidexterized by him, with doubts, respectfully infinuated;-and was, in due courfe of time, dethroned, without ceremony, as an impudent ufurper, by the fame notable polemic, as well as

*

-and their heads are hung

With EARS that sweep away the morning dew.

+ Tro. and Creff. Act V. Sc. I.

[Midf. Night's Dream.

"If a bound gives his mouth, and is not upon the scent of